RovinNah, that's a Children In Need mini-episode. Over in the U.K. they have a children's benefit telethon called - you got it, Children In Need - and they have all sorts of special stuff and whatnot. This is a "mini episode" of Doctor Who done specifically for the Children In Need event. Last year the Who peoples put on a concert of Murray Gold's music for the show, and the year before that they did another of these mini-episodes that sorta explained why the newly regenerated Doc was wonky and sent the TARDIS crashing toward earth.

Nice to see Peter Davison, though he sure as hell looks out of place with all that new Who stuff. Nice homage to his era at the end.

drcryptThere have been some really terrible Doctor Who Children in Need specials in the past, including one that teamed all the Doctors up until that point (I believe it went up to Colin Baker) with the cast of Eastenders. If it's not submitted already, I'll add it, but it's probably the worst thing to have ever come out of Doctor Who.

This, fortunately, is a hell of a lot better. I'm dorky enough to have gotten a bit weepy when David Tennant told the Fifth Doctor how much it meant to have been him.

StanleyPainYou're thinking of Dimensions in Time, and it actually went up to Sylvester McCoy. It was AWFUL. Even as a one-off, silly, kids show thing it was horrible. This is much better. Nice, short, and sweet. Kind of like that silly "Jim'll Fix It" episode with Colin Baker.

I should probably watch these new episodes. I was just really turned off by the one episode where they are stuck in a church and his companion bumps into the young version of her long lost Dad/baby self (with the Doctor before this one).

This show is extremely campy, extremely idealistic, extremely fun and I love it for that. It's also generally well written. This show kept me warm at 3am on PBS when I was 13 and I will always like it even though it's for little kids.

RovinNow if we could just get Steven Moffatt as head writer, I'd be all aflutter. Best writer on this series by a mile (Paul Cornell's done really well in his outings, too, but Moffat consistently kicks ass every single outing).